Baja 1000

24 Hours At The World's Most Dangerous Race

We pass roadside restaurants offering burritos and birreria, sodas frescas. We pass massive junkyards with lost vehicular gems twinkling in the sun (including, inexplicably, a Ferrari 380). Hours of dried chaparral, twisting mountain roads, craggy hills with white crosses mounted on their peaks. There’s a lot of eating stale potato chips, listening to radio chatter, and Chevy vs. Ram vs. Ford debates. For the support teams and crew, the Baja 1000 is made up of pressurized high-anxiety exclamation points surrounded by long static hours of boredom. Driving from one pit to the next, hundreds of miles away. After our last pit, another crew member, Kai, would be cutting across the desert to meet up with No. 26 at a late stage pit. Kai would be sitting there under the Mexican sun and deep into the night for 12 hours, where he planned on catching a nap. “Sleep and eat when you can,” Kai had told me of lessons learned the hard way. Like the rest of the crew, he’d been averaging four hours of sleep a night for over a week. It'll wear on you.

Launched on Halloween in 1967, the Baja 1000 has grown to become the fifth most famous race in the world. Not due to the fame of the drivers, the millions in sponsorship poured in or the wealth of its multi-million-dollar teams, like some motor sports — but because of its pure, unhinged lunacy. Because of the rubbed-raw nature of the thousand-mile-long competition, and the dizzying breadth of its entrants — from small, stock VW Beetles (stock!) to dirt bikes and buggies, to trophy trucks like the War Machine, the big daddies of the sport (trophy trucks took the first six places in this year’s race). It is no exaggeration to call it the most dangerous major race in the world, one run by adventure-seekers like Steve McQueen, James Garner, Paul Newman and Ted Nugent to racing legends Jimmie Johnson, Rick Mears, Mickey Thompson and Indy 500 winner Parnelli Jones. The Baja averages two deaths a year, oftentimes spectators like the Trophy Truck Matadors — kids who run up and try to tap the trucks as they pass at full speed. Success means they're village heroes for a month. Failure means getting trampled by a flock of kids. Or worse. There are innumerable aspects of the Baja that simply wouldn't fly in America — this is just one of them. It is the most unlawful, mechanized ballet of chaos you will ever witness.

Many have called it the Ultimate Race, and this 46th edition — due to its new course and hellish terrain — may be the most brutal ever. "This is the toughest loop race I’ve ever seen," testified Rob MacCachren after the race. "Some drivers think it is too tough." MacCachren , the 2007 winner of the Baja 1000, would eventually notch second place. Another wild card is the locals — both a blessing and a scourge of the Baja. They will lure you into a ditch or flip your vehicle over with a purposely misplaced log… and then when you crash, help pull you out of waist-deep waters. They will also swarm a chase truck and pick off wrenches, tires, tools and even used lug nuts. It's not so much for the value as for mementos. These trophy trucks are the apex vehicles of the sport, the impossible cars of dreams and posters. For residents of the barren Baja peninsula, the 1000 is the Easter Bunny, New Year’s Eve and the Daytona 500 all rolled into one. Team stickers have an inconceivable value here; they hold their own currency. “I had to tackle a 220-pound Mexican who was making a run for it with one of our hoods!” Mom once recalled excitedly. “I got him to the ground, and then offered him a used fender instead.”

There are benign tricks locals pull, like moving course markers to steer racers off track. Then there are much more serious ones, such as digging massive holes and covering them up with cardboard, or filling them with water. Sometimes they drag boulders onto the road around blind turns, smashing unsuspecting transmissions and knocking vehicles out of commission. This year, at mile 796 and less than forty miles from finishing in first place, accomplished motorcycle rider Kurt Caselli crashed violently, suffering massive head trauma. He was helivac-ed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. It was a blow to the entire Baja family, and sent a chilling sense of reality across the weekend. Beyond the tragedy of the racers losing a fraternal member of their tribe was the rumor that it was one of these booby traps that took him out, underscoring the mortal weight of these pranks. Others say he hit an animal, but thus far there has been no official word from Baja organizers SCORE, who would probably rather bury the story than propagate the pall that it sends over their event. Because the truth is, there’s nothing SCORE can do; it’s simply impossible to maintain vigilance over 1,000 miles of Mexican outback.

Back at the chase truck headed towards San Felipe, a call crackles over the radio, breaking the long silence. It’s the call nobody wants to hear, that no one even allows themselves to consider. “Trophy truck No. 26 has been in an accident,” the disembodied voice informs. “They're at mile 247; we'll send details as soon as we hear.” Silence. Everyone just stares at each other, dumbstruck.